Operation Midnight Climax

Retired Article • written by Shad Larsen

The US CIA and military is filled with a history of bad decisions, deceit, and in some cases what I would classify as pure evil. One such misguided and unethical program was an appendage of Project MKULTRA under the name of Operation Midnight Climax.

Before we go into detail we must first explore the nature of Project MKULTRA. MKULTRA was started in 1953 under the direction of CIA director Allen Dulles. The program was allowed to use up to 6% of the total CIA budget and required no budget oversight or reporting. The premise of MKULTRA was to explore the use of “mind-control” drugs after alleged uses of such drugs by Communist Leadership (Soviets, Chinese and North Koreans) on U.S. POWs. The drugs included the use of LSD, Heroin, and Sodium Pentothal (Truth Serum).

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Dr. Sidney Gottlieb oversaw many experiments exploring the use of LSD on often times unknowing U.S. citizens. The experiments often took a sadistic turn. Gottlieb was known to torture victims by locking them in sensory deprivation chambers while dosed on LSD, or to make recordings of psychiatric patients’ therapy sessions, and then play a tape loop of the patient’s most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD. Gottlieb himself took LSD frequently, locking himself in his office and taking copious notes.

After recruitment efforts became increasingly difficult to find volunteers of these programs the CIA sought out other means of conducting their “studies”. Operation Midnight Climax was an illegal operation initially established by Dr. George Hunter White under the alias of Morgan Hall for the CIA. The direction of this operation employed the use of prostitutes from the San Francisco area to lure men and then serve them alcohol containing large doses of LSD. These women would then fulfill their financial obligations to the drugged men under observation of CIA personnel through a two-way mirror and taped for later observation. The selection of the men focused on candidates that would be too embarrassed to present the circumstances to the public for fear of exposure themselves.

Some subjects’ participation was consensual, and in these cases, the subjects appeared to be singled out for even more horrific experiments. In one case, a selection of volunteers was given LSD for 77 days straight.

LSD was eventually dismissed by the researchers as too unpredictable in its effects. Although useful information was sometimes obtained through questioning subjects on LSD, not uncommonly the most marked effect would be the subject’s absolute and utter certainty that they were able to withstand any form of interrogation attempt, even physical torture.

In 1964 Project MKULTRA was renamed MKTRUTH and continued to operate well into the 1970s. In 1972 all documentation related to MKULTRA was ordered to be destroyed by CIA director Richard Helms, no doubt seeing public pressure weighing on the situation. This action hid the details of more than 150 individually funded programs.

In 1974 the New York Times blew the lid off of things and soon after the Church Committee and Rockafeller Commission was created to explore and put an end to these programs.

In the summer of 1975, congressional hearings and the Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the DOD had conducted experiments on both cognizant and unwitting human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD.

“tape loop of the patient’s most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD. (“Dr.”) Gottlieb himself took LSD frequently, locking himself in his office and taking copious notes”

People like this should be brought up on war crimes charges – they’re psychpaths not unlike serial killers.

>>”Wait, a two-way mirror? What good does that do?”

If only, oh if only it made animals like Gottlieb have a darn good look at themselves and see how sick they are..

Griffin

Posted 21 August 2006 at 12:29 pm

On the surface it sure sounds bad and evil. Putting that aside, has anybody consider subtracting out the mis-information. Acknowlegdge that LSD impacts the mind, then ask what was the CIA really looking for???
Is there something LSD does for the Brain that may allow a form of interogation which brings back useful information? If that is possible, what would they be searching for? The truth is stranger than fiction!
Nothing is as it seems.

Zamemee

Posted 07 September 2006 at 04:29 pm

Wait, 77 days straight?! They would have been perma-fried. Seriously, they would have never been the same!

Skytree

Posted 29 March 2007 at 03:10 pm

It’s worth noting that one the volunteers in this program was a young Ted Kaczynski, then in his late teens and attending Harvard.

Blase Splee

Posted 29 June 2007 at 02:41 pm

Skytree said: “It’s worth noting that one the volunteers in this program was a young Ted Kaczynski, then in his late teens and attending Harvard.”

Was this in one of the above links? Source?

Bungle

Posted 29 January 2008 at 01:55 am

Zamemee said: “Wait, 77 days straight?! They would have been perma-fried. Seriously, they would have never been the same!”

it’s an alarming concept, isn’t it? I find the idea of being straitjacketed while on lsd the scariest, however- with our without the degrading remarks being played, that experience would be enough to shatter your mental wellbeing…

A german film stating that the Unabomber, among others, was involved in the project…

sushma1010

Posted 19 March 2008 at 09:51 am

Hello Sir/Madam,

My name is Sushma , 27 year old married women with a 2 year old daughter.

I am sending this email seeking help and advice from you regarding the polygraph / brain mapping / lie-detector.

Our marriage is in big trouble because my husband doesn’t believe me, He thinks that i have done black magic to him and
putting slow poison to him….
and he is accusing me of so many things which i haven’t done and now it has been frustrated for me,
i have been trying to tell him
the way i can , but the way things are happening around us is making him to suspect on me all the time….I donr blame him i just want tell hime the truth with the prof.

its been almost 2 years i have been living like a crap and i thought of leaving all and go some place else ,
but if i go just like that he will think that i have done some thing
wrong , and it will be like proving myself wrong which i haven’t done…

But now i wana make myself clear to him by taking the polygraph / brain mapping / lie-detector test ……
.Pleas provide me the information on this and i am in need of dessparet help….other wise i don’t know where things will
go and what i am gonna end up with.

Do i need court order for this ?, where is this test done ?, does this test is used to solve the family matters?…
if not is there is any other test are there?… and how much does this test costs.
Pleas give me the informations as soon as possible, I think this is the only way i have found out to prove myself
to my husband that i haven’t lied to him / haven’t done anything wrong. Pleas help me with this.

In need of help
Thanks
Sushma

DanThinksDances&femaleGspot

Posted 22 July 2008 at 07:58 pm

Enter your reply text here. OK

There is always going to be a criminal-
DO NOT FUCK WITH AMERICAN FAMILIES.
The CIA is heroes. There can not be harm done to our civilians. That is against their mission.

Very sad.

////////////////////////Blase Splee #6 June 29th, 2007 2:41 pm
Skytree said: a young Ted Kaczynski,
Was this in one of the above links? Source?////////////////////////////

Shut up wtih your proof. The timing works to make for an idea that could be.
Also Wiki source is no proof.

Blueskyyy

Posted 27 September 2008 at 04:40 pm

Sushma1010, are you writing from the United States? If so, contact your local human services department. If you do not know how to do this, call any city office and ask to be transferred to social services.

The entry on MKULTRA itself also mentions “A considerable amount of credible circumstantial evidence suggests that Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, participated in CIA-sponsored MK-ULTRA experiments conducted at Harvard University ”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

Make of that what you will..

ValiantDefender

Posted 02 February 2009 at 04:24 pm

Did I misread something or did it say that the CIA used prostitutes….had them “fulfill their financial obligations” (i.e. have sex with) and videotaped this for later study?

So messed up.

leonpanetta

Posted 15 June 2009 at 08:26 pm

There’s actually a new web series out based on all of this called, appropriately, Operation Midnight Climax. Its pretty cool, plus its got that hottie from the 80’s movies, Meredith Salanger.http://www.strangescience.tv

johnb3491

Posted 23 April 2010 at 09:13 pm

Bungle said: “Zamemee said: “Wait, 77 days straight?! They would have been perma-fried. Seriously, they would have never been the same!”
it’s an alarming concept, isn’t it? I find the idea of being straitjacketed while on lsd the scariest, however- with our without the degrading remarks being played, that experience would be enough to shatter your mental wellbeing…”

NikT said: “>>My god, why did every damn government institution turn evil in that war?

They _turned_ evil??? Trouble is that potentially (otherwise) non-evil institutions allow idiots to remain in critical positions…. eg. Dr. Gottlieb:
“tape loop of the patient’s most self-degrading statement over and over through headphones after the patient had been restrained in a straitjacket and dosed with LSD. (“Dr.”) Gottlieb himself took LSD frequently, locking himself in his office and taking copious notes”
People like this should be brought up on war crimes charges – they’re psychpaths not unlike serial killers.
>>”Wait, a two-way mirror? What good does that do?”
If only, oh if only it made animals like Gottlieb have a darn good look at themselves and see how sick they are..”

Mr. Gottlieb, like Goddard and Van Braun were spoils of war, taken from Germany. The justification for these experiments was that since the Russians and Chinese are doing mind control, we had better be prepared. This article discribes a part of the ugliness that followed, sponsered by our Government and not a source of pride.

alexandria denton

Posted 01 July 2014 at 12:58 pm

Ok…if the government didn’t want us to know all this information, why is it still accessible? Now I do believe that this information is very much true, but I feel like it’s more to is being that what’s goin on with the government today is hid from us.
Now if this info is here for us to see and they obviously don’t care that we see it, what’s worse than all of this where it must be hid from us? Now I’m not just sayin this to get people to thinkin about the what ifs, I’m just curious.